The moral differences between the holocaust and bombing Japan

It's not obvious to you? The Jews of Europe did not start a war, did not kill millions of people, did not attempt to conquer other countries and enslave their populations. Japan did.

Some perspective would help, too. There's currently some bullshit popular online to the effect that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary because Japan was a defeated nation. That's playing fast and loose with the historical reality, based on a form of monday morning quarterbacking going back almost 70 years. Japan was a defeated nation as soon as the first bomb was dropped on Hawaii. There may have been a few people in Japan who understood this, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku was one of them. He had in fact planned the attack on Hawaii, and pushed it through against resistance by the Imperial General Staff. However, he was the only one thinking clearly in Japan at the time. The IGS was already committed to what has become known as the Southern Operation, which was actually a series of operations to invade and occupy Hong Kong, the Philippine Islands, French Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, British Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies. The operational plan for the invasion of the Philippines called for an invading force to overrun Luzon, the island on which Manila is located, in five weeks. (In the event, it took five months.) Yamamoto knew that the Pacific Fleet, originally based in San Diego, could steam to Luzon in three weeks time, including the time to assemble all of their vessels and all of their supplies and transports. When the Pacific Fleet was moved to Hawaii, it cut that down to two weeks. Attacking Hawaii became even more crucial to protecting the Southern Operation. In a letter before the Japanese went to war with the United States, he told the person he was writing to that the United States would only surrender when Japan dictated terms to them in the White House. That would have meant completely defeating the United States Navy, steaming to the west coast of the United States, landing troops, defeating the United States Army Air Force, defeating the United States Army and Marine Corps, and all of the divisions of the National Guard, and fighting across three thousand miles. Yamamoto had no illusions about the outcome of the war. He was, however, a military professional, and although he may not have been an obsessive, fascist militarist as were the people leading the nation, he would do his duty, and his first duty was to protect the Southern Operation, and that meant an attack on the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii.

The attack, which did far less damage than it could have, made the loony militarists euphoric. But they were a defeated nation when the first bomb fell on Pearl Harbor. In May, 1942, the Japanese were defeated in the Battle of the Coral Sea--the first time in history when two fleets fought one another without coming into visual range--the Japanese fight on. In June, the Japanese First Air Fleet, consisting of four heavy carriers (which also took part in the Pearl Harbor attack), a medium carrier and a light carrier, as well as battleships, cruisers and destroyers, attempts to take Midway Island. To oppose them, the United States had a fleet with three heavy carriers and a handful of escorts. One American carrier was sunk, another damaged (it would be repaired to fight again), and 150 aircraft and more than 300 men were lost. All four of the heavy carriers in Nagumo's fleet were sunk, all 248 aircraft were shot down or destroyed in the attacks on the carriers, and more than 3000 Japanese airmen and sailors were killed. The Americans not only could replace their losses, new carriers and better planes were already on the way. Japan never replaced their losses.

Japan fought on.

Japan had invaded New Britain and the Solomon Islands, but the Battle of the Coral Sea stopped any further advance. Now the U.S. Navy lands the First Marine Division on Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Japanese naval forces inflict heavy casualties on the United States Navy, including sinking two carriers and several cruisers. The United States can replace her losses--Japan cannot. After five months, the Japanese attempt to evacuate their forces on Guadalcanal, and those left behind surrender. The elements of the United States Navy now in the waters of the Solomon Islands not only vastly outnumber the Japanese, there are more than three times as many ships as were assigned to the original invasion fleet.

Japan fought on.

A month after the fall of Guadalcanal, the Japanese tried to send about 7000 troops from Rabaul on New Britain to New Guinea. In the Battle of the Bismark Sea, all eight troop transports were sunk, and about 3000 troops killed. The USAAF and the RAAF lost six planes. The power of Rabaul as a threat to Allied operations was destroyed, and subsequent attacks by the USAAF and RAAF destroyed their offensive air power.

Japan fought on.

Even before the war, American code breakers had broken the Japanese naval codes, and in April of 1943, they sent out fighter air craft to hunt down a Japanese transport plane, which they shot down, killing Admiral Yamamoto.

Japan fought on.

In October, 1943, Emperor Hirohito publicly says that Japan's situation is "truly grave." The obsessive, fascist militarists insist on fighting on.

From late 1943 to early 1944, the U.S. Navy takes the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands. Having already re-taken Wake Island, the USAAF is now bombing Japanese bases in the Mariana Islands.

Japan fights on.

In the summer of 1944, U.S. Marines inavde Saipan in the Mariana Islands. A month and a half later, they re-take Guam. On Saipan, the Japanese won't surrender. Japanese civilians throw themselves from the cliffs rather than surrender. Women and children who are reluctant to jump off the cliffs are prodded to their deaths by the bayonets of Japanese soldiers. This will be repeated on Iwo Jima. The USAAF is now in bombing range of the Japanese home islands.

Japan fights on.

The United States Army and Navy invade the Philippine Islands, and the last gasp of the Imperial Navy is turned back when American destroyers sacrifice themselves to protect the carriers.

Japan fights on.

From mid-1944 to the end of the war, the USAAF launches firebomb attacks on 66 Japanese cities. No one will ever know how many people were killed. Estimates run from a quarter of a million to a million civilian deaths. The A-bomb attacks are paltry in comparison.

Japan fights on.

All the armchair generals out there, all the monday morning quarterbacks seventy years later cry tears for a nation which committed gross atrocities and continued to do so right up until the end. We destroyed their navy and they fought on. We destroyed their air forces and they fought on. We took back all of the real estate the Japanese had stolen from unoffending neighbors and the Japanese fought on. They were willing to kill their own women and children rather than see them surrender. We destroyed every major city in Japan, and they wouldn't surrender, they wouldn't negotiate and they wouldn't even f*cking offer to negotiate . . .

. . . until we nuked two of their cities.

Anyone who cannot understand why the United States used the A-bomb on Japan is a blithering idiot. The holocaust was about people being killed for no other reason than that they were Jews, or Gypsies or Slavs. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed because those lunatic, fascist militarists wouldn't f*cking surrender, not because it was Japan. The fate of Japanese civilians was a tragedy. The responsibility for that tragedy rests squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese fascist militarists.

No it is not, I am a 1965 baby who did not go through it and I have never studied it. I thought that now may be a good time.

I have been taught that the winning side records history as they see it and I like to see how other sides view it as well. I am not suggesting that anything you have shared is false but I do like to hear opposing views. Do you have a documentary or something that you think would be useful on my quest for knowledge?

I found this video and it starts out as a holy war. I have not seen it yet but I will soon.

Thank you very much, Setanta, for stating the historical truth!

* thumbs up *

No, i don't have a documentary for you. I know it must cause you agony, but try reading a f*cking book.

Jesus wept.

Just wait . . . the legions of those who hate the United States and cry for the poor, victimized Japanese will show up soon.

No real way to argue with any of that. To my thinking the Japanese could probably have been talked into surrendering by late 45 but Truman et. al. were basically out of patience and it isn't difficult to see why.

Another way to look at the thing about the two A bombs is to think of what the Japanese would have been facing in November of 45 if the two A bombs had not existed. LeMay would have been resupplied with incendaries, whih he'd run out of in July, he'd have been operating his B29s from Okinawa instead of the Marianas which would have had the same effect as quadrupling the numbers of them, ALL American carriers would have been freed from supporting further island invasions (they were only vulnerable to Kamikazes while when being held on station to protect invasions) to attack the Japanese mainland, those older carriers would have been joined by Midway class carriers with armored decks and bearcats and tigercats, and the targets would have become smaller cities and the little boats which went out to catch fish....

Six months of that ****, and Japan would have ceased to exist altogether.

There were millions of Japanese troops in Korea and China. They did not have adequate food, medical supplies, logistical support, air support or AFVs. They continued to fight on. In 1944, they launched nearly half a million troops in an offensive (which failed) against the American air bases in China. The Soviets destroyed a Japanese force of nearly a million and a half troops in Manchuria--some 90,000 killed, and more than half a million POWs. It wasn't a matter of patience--they needed to end that war.

Operation Downfall was the alternative to Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an estimated toll of millions. You can read at the link.

Has all this answered your question?

No

Any book on the subject or only the ones you agree with?

If and when someone uses the a bomb on us will it only be the idiots that are not able to understand the reasons why it needed to be done?

War is a terrible thing and innocent people get caught up in them.
It appears that throughout history all it takes is one person who becomes in charge of a powerful army to take a country into total destruction.
It seems to be a belief each time and the leaders always say it is a just war and god is on their side. If I am not mistake the Japanese thought that the British were invading Asia and the Japanese wanted Asia to be free. At least that is what I think they were telling their people. I heard that the government was liberal but was taken over by a dictator who ruled the army and then all hell broke loose. Some of what I shared may be incorrect because of the poor memory that I posses.

Any book. Do you remember how to read a book?

Are you serious? You do not think that there are some books out there that would be misleading?

My daughter is in Nanking at the moment. She's just visited a museum dedicated to the Nanking massacre, a very sobering experience.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

Well, Mr. Gullible, my usual reply would be that anyone who can read a newspaper and form a reasonable judgment of the quality of the journalism should be able to do the same thing with a book. However, in your case, you seem to believe any old bullshit you see at youtube, so that may not be the best answer for you. Historians who write reliable histories provide sources for their work. It is in a section after the main body called the bibliography. They also footnote their work, making reference to the source of their claims, usually in reference to the bibliographical entries. If you read something in a book, and the author doesn't have a source for it, you should consider it suspect unless and until you have read further and found confirmation for it.

This is why i have told you more than once that the kind of crap you pick up at youtube is no substitute for formal education.

By the way, i answered the question of this thread at the beginning of my first post.



If you think i'm lying, or deluded, then all you need do is got a library (that's a big building, usually centrally located in a city or neighborhood, with a lot of books in it) and check out several books on this subject. Yes, i know it would be excruciating agony for you to read one book, let alone several, but if you really want to know the answer to this idiotic and simple-minded question, you're going to need to educate yourself.

You can't do that at youtube.